Chain
by Ryuutsu Seishin Hime no Argh
Summary: A collection of shorts based on the characters of Full Metal Alchemist and their relationships with one another. Spoilers for the whole series. Mother: Lieutenant Ross reflects on that which she can never have.
1. Things He Has Not Seen

_A note from the Hime no Argh herself—_

Hello all, thanks for checking out the fic. _Chain_ is a collection of flash fiction based on the characters of Full Metal Alchemist and their relationships with one another. In case you're not familiar with the term, flash fiction generally refers to very short stories that are between three hundred to one thousand words. All of these pieces are stand-alone, but since they're quite short I decided to post them in a collection.

Title: Chain

First link: Things He Has Not Seen

Summary: Alphonse has a driving secret.

Disclaimer: I don't own Full Metal Alchemist or related characters and concepts. In all other aspects this collection is my exclusive property and no part of it may be used without my express permission.

Rating: PG-13 for violence.

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**Things He Has Not Seen**

Alphonse Elric didn't have much time to feel lonely or sorry for himself, mostly because Izumi worked him like a dog. It wasn't that she was cruel—in fact it was probably a kindness, to keep him so busy studying alchemy or with physical training that he had no time or effort left for despair. His teacher was someone to admire—strength and tenderness, harshness and compassion, fury and love all wrapped up into one splendid woman. Her temper reminded him—vaguely—of his brother, but then, everything about Ed was vague, even the years before those four he had lost. Al knew from Winry and Rose and others with their memories intact everything that had transpired in those four years, but to hear his friends speak about them was like listening to a story about characters who happened to share Al and Ed's names. The events that had transpired after the day they tried to transmute their mother were incomprehensible to him.

His memories of his brother were disjointed and broken, fading with each passing year they were separated. The fact that Al couldn't remember what Ed's voice sounded like or just why he hated milk so much filled him with panic and drove him to work harder than ever, holding onto the science he and his brother had once shared like it was a ledge on a steep cliff. He liked it when Izumi got sharp, if only because it reminded him of his brother's temper.

Shortly before he had left Rizembool with Izumi to study alchemy, Brigadier General Roy Mustang and his lieutenant, Liza Hawkeye, had come to visit the Rockbells. Al had stayed out of their way, irrationally upset with these two people who remembered the brother he had forgotten, but the day before they were to leave, Hawkeye cornered him.

"The Brigadier General wants to give you this, but he doesn't know how," she'd told him gravely, pressing a small package wrapped in brown paper into his hand. "Please take it. Even if you never look at it, that would be enough."

He took it, of course. He was at Izumi's when curiosity at last overcame him and he unwrapped the package.

It was a framed photo of a massive suit of armor and a blond-haired adolescent dressed in black, standing side-by-side. The accompanying note, written in Mustang's hand, told him it had been taken four months before Edward Elric disappeared off the face of the earth. Alphonse didn't need the note to tell him which was his brother and which was himself.

He didn't care about the suit of armor—he had no memory of it, after all. But on those rare nights when Izumi hadn't worked him to exhaustion, he took the photo out from its hiding place beneath his mattress and stared at it for hours, memorizing his brother's face. He looked different from Al's memory of him and from other photos he'd seen. He was clearly older, though not much taller. His face was tired, though he stood straight-backed as though determined not to give in to weariness. His shoulders were tense as though he were carrying a weight on them that no one else could see, and his eyes—there was pain in his eyes, so much of it.

Alphonse worked harder than he thought possible in the years at Izumi's house. He worked until he thought he would collapse with exhaustion; he studied until he couldn't sleep at night for the litany of facts and figures running endlessly through his brain. When it got too hard, he reminded himself that it was all for the sake of his brother—not the Ed he remembered, but the Ed he saw in that photo.

Whatever had put that pain in his eyes, Al didn't know. But he did know that he wanted it gone.

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Next link: **Another Entry**


	2. Another Entry

_A note from the Hime no Argh herself—_

Many thanks to those who read and reviewed the first chapter. There will be many more where that came from, as many as I can write. This one's a bit special. The original concept came from a Full Metal Alchemist fanfic my friend Danny is writing, _The Diary of Edward Elric. _With his permission I'm posting this.

Title: Another Entry

Summary: Edward rages. Hohenheim listens.

Disclaimer: I don't own FMA.

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**Another Entry**

The door opened, then shut with a firm click. Hohenheim watched his son walk across the foyer without looking up once, mouth drawn tightly, eyes glittering with anger. His footsteps thudded on the rickety wooden staircase. A door upstairs opened, then quietly closed.

Hohenheim glanced down at his watch, counting the seconds. _One…two…three…four…_

A heavy crash from the above floor shook the entire house. Hohenheim suspected that the bookcase in his son's room was no longer standing against the wall. He sat back in his chair with a sigh and listened as his son raged around his room for a quarter of an hour, cursing in German, punctuating the usual quiet of Hohenheim's house with more crashes and thuds. Hohenheim could never guess where his first child with Trisha had gotten his temper—certainly not from himself or his late wife.

At last the noise stopped—either Edward had finally calmed down, or he'd run out of things to destroy. Hohenheim waited five minutes to make sure he was finished, then ascended the stairs and crossed the hall to his son's room. When his soft knock garnered no response from within, he cautiously opened the door.

The mess was spectacular. The bookcase was indeed lying on the floor—a desk was also upended, the contents of its drawers scattered, a wooden leg snapped off. There were several holes and dents in the plaster walls. Paper was strewn everywhere—it looked as though Edward had ripped apart every book he owned. In the midst of the destruction stood his son, fists clenched, shoulders shaking slightly, breathing hard and glaring at Hohenheim as though all this were his fault.

"Six years," Edward said through gritted teeth. "I've wasted six years. That Einstein bastard was right."

It was more than his life was worth to tell his son _I told you so._ Stalling for time while he tried to think of something to say, Hohenheim glanced down at the mess of papers and torn books at his feet, nudging through them with his toe. One volume, amazingly, seemed to be whole. Hohenheim picked it up, reaching for a handkerchief to clear the dust and plaster from the cover.

His mouth fell open in astonishment as he thumbed through the pages. It was a diary, written in Edward's hand, detailing his accomplishments in this world, his failures, his best moods and his worst moments of despair—and every single entry was addressed to his brother Al. The dates went back to the year Edward had crossed the Gate permanently into this world. All of these years Edward had been writing to his brother, letters that Alphonse might never see or even know existed.

Hohenheim gently closed the diary and offered it to his son. Edward stared at it as though he'd never seen it before in his life, then slowly reached out a hand and took it. He glared at his father again, as though daring him to comment on the journal's contents.

Hohenheim merely shrugged. "Just keep trying."

Silently, father and son got to work cleaning up the mess.

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Next link: **Hell**

Alphonse, Edward, and a blood-splattered cellar.


	3. Hell

_A note from the Hime no Argh herself—_

Thanks again to Fireblazie, Lazerducky and Princess Kurumi for reviewing. This one and the next are my two favorites out of the flash pieces I've written so far. To answer Lazerducky's question, to my knowledge drabbles are 100 words or less, while a flash fiction is 300-1000 words. Much more space to develop a scene.

Title: Hell

Summary: Alphonse, Edward, and a blood-splattered cellar.

Disclaimer: I don't own FMA.

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**Hell**

Alphonse Elric died at the age of eleven. He didn't know what else could explain the inscrutable force that had yanked him away from his brother as he screamed in terror and agony, because in the next moment he found himself floating in a dark fog, unable to tell where he was or how he could get out of this place. He thought he saw things, meaningless pictures and images that he couldn't make out. Then a voice was screaming, desperately calling out his name.

The next moment, Alphonse Elric was in hell.

The forbidden cellar room was filled with smoke, and Al was lying on the floor atop the remnants of a chalked transmutation circle. Memory flooded him, and he pushed himself up on his elbows—why did he hear metal creaking?—and tried to see through the smoke, to tell if their effort to bring their mother back had worked.

"_Don't look at that thing! Don't you dare look at it!"_

Alphonse jerked around; never once in his life had he heard his brother sound like that. Later he would remember wondering what was wrong with his brother's body—why he looked so oddly deformed, like a doll contorted into an alien shape. His mind, briefly, refused to accept what his eyes were seeing—that his brother was missing an arm and a leg, that the blood splattering his body and pooling beneath him was his own.

"Brother! Why are you—your arm—your leg—what happened!" Al crawled to Ed's side. Why did he hear metal creaking again? Why was Ed so small? He looked at his hands—they weren't his, they were made of leather and metal, as though he had donned a pair of gauntlets. "What happened, brother!"

"It went wrong." Ed's eyes were glassy; his breathing was shallow and labored. He was pressing a hand over the stump of his arm, trying to staunch the flow of blood. The air was thick with the red stink of it. "We—I miscalculated. We didn't give enough—" He rolled onto his side and curled into himself, gritting his teeth. "I'm going to die, Al, I'm going to die—"

"Don't talk like that!" Desperately Al looked around for something he could used to staunch the bleeding. There was nothing. Ed needed a doctor, fast.

The closest person to a doctor for twenty miles around was Aunt Pinako. Al scooped his brother up into his arms, terrified at how small Ed was and how easily Al could lift him, and darted upstairs. The sheets off his mother's bed would do for a bandage. Grimly and easily he tore them apart and wrapped them around Ed's wounds, trying to ignore his brother's ragged, agonized breathing, or the fact that his skin was whiter than the sheets.

When at last he stumbled into the foyer of the Rockbells' house, holding his dying brother in his arms as he begged for help, seeing his own horror and terror reflected in Pinako and Winry's eyes, Alphonse Elric, at the age of eleven, knew what hell was.

It was the thing that was supposed to be their mother left to die on the cellar floor. It was his brother bleeding half to death from his missing limbs. It was the clacking artificial metal that Pinako and Winry gave Ed to allow him to walk and write again. It was his own empty metal body, stained with his brother's blood.

Alphonse knew what hell was. What he didn't know, what he would come to learn, was that hell was never easily escaped.

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Next link: **Some Day**

After taking her parents away, there's something Mustang wants.


	4. Some Day

_A note from the Hime no Argh herself—_

Ooh, more reviews this time, thanks! Good to know people are reading and enjoying. I've had a lot of fun writing these little things (a lot of frustration too). I'll just continue on until there's nothing left to explore. This particular piece is another of my favorites. It's difficultto get inside the colonel's head.

Title: Some Day

Summary: After taking her parents away, there's something Mustang wants.

Disclaimer: Not teh ownage.

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**Some Day**

He came to visit often, the man who had killed her parents. Aunt Pinako welcomed him, even though she knew his presence must make Winry uncomfortable. She had never quite forgotten, not yet forgiven. It wasn't that she didn't think he regretted it—she knew he did. But old scars never really healed, and as far as she was concerned, the man who had taken her parents away from her could suffer a little for his sins.

The house was so full these days, with Rose and the little one, Schiezka on occasion, Al whenever he needed a break from Izumi's strict tutelage. The small intrusion upon her life when Roy Mustang and Liza Hawkeye visited was tolerable, if not wanted. And she didn't mind Liza so much. She liked when the Lieutenant talked about what Mustang's company was doing these days, asked how Alphonse was doing at Izumi's, confided that she and Mustang occasionally discussed marriage. But him…there was simply nothing to say.

"Why does he come?" she asked Liza once with just a hint of bitterness, as they sat together on the porch in the dying sun, sipping tea.

The Lieutenant took a long time answering. Winry had come to discover that she liked to be precise about things.

"There are several reasons," she said at last. "Partly he feels responsible for Edward's disappearance. He wants to look Alphonse in the eye and make sure he knows that he bears this responsibility willingly. Obviously it's impractical to visit Izumi, so he visits here instead, hoping to encounter Alphonse."

Winry nodded. That made sense. Izumi was notorious for her indiscriminate hatred of the military and everyone involved.

"And, of course, there's you." Winry had expected that, but couldn't help a slight flinch; Liza pretended not to notice. "You know he regrets killing your parents. He knows you haven't forgiven him yet. He's waiting for the day you do."

"I might never." It was a difficult thing to confess, knowing how much the older woman cared for, perhaps even loved, her commanding officer.

"Yes, I know," was the calm reply. "So does he. That's not what matters, not so much. He doesn't expect your forgiveness. I don't think he even truly wants it. He looks in your eyes and sees the bitterness and loneliness there, and the accusation, and he welcomes it. The pain and the weight of his sin, because he can't and won't forget. He comes here to let you hurt him."

Winry stared at her companion. "That doesn't make any sense."

"Of course it does," Liza said mildly. "Pain is better than nothing. If you can't feel, you might as well be dead." She stared up into the sky, her eyes seeing something Winry couldn't. "Hurt him, Winry. Cut him down as many times as you want, until your sword is blunt. Then someday, if you can, forgive him. For his sake, and for yours."

The sky was blood-red and the dying sun lit the entire valley on fire. Winry sipped her tea and watched the sun sink into oblivion behind Rizembool's mountains, trying to comprehend the way adults' minds worked.

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Next link: **Withering Flower**

Rose despairs over the man she thought she'd never see again.


	5. Withering Flower

_A note from the Hime no Argh herself—_

Sorry this chapter was so long in coming; I was on spring break without access to a computer, so I couldn't update. Lots of thanks to those who have been reading and reviewing.

Title: Withering Flower

Summary: Rose despairs over the man she thought she'd never see again.

Disclaimer: No ownage.

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**Withering Flower**

She didn't know him. Eight years had changed him—perhaps not dramatically, but significantly. Apart from being an inch or two taller than her, a bit of a shock—it seemed nature had caught up with him at last—he was so…quiet. Where was the loud, cocky brashness? Where was the self-assured certainty that everything he did was equal to God's grace upon the earth? Where was the righteous anger, the insistence of his incredible wisdom over everyone older than him? He was quiet, very quiet. An apparition in a house full of people who had never truly believed they might see him again.

But he was happy, she knew that. No, he was more than happy—he was in heaven. Granted, Rose hadn't known him for very long, but in the time she had she had never once seen that look on his face, the incredible peace and contentment he wore whenever he was with his brother—which was always. Edward and Alphonse did not leave one another's side, not for a moment, not for any reason. They slept in the same room, as they had when they were children. If one was bathing, the other was no more than a closed door away. One always knew where the other was.

She couldn't be jealous. In fact she understood their situation completely. After eight long years, the very thought of being separated again was so painful that neither trusted the other out of his sight for five, maybe ten minutes at the most. They did not trust that the laws of this world would not whisk them apart without warning.

Rose had a child. She understood a bond deeper than blood, a bond that could overcome any pain, even that which she had suffered at the hands of her son's father. She understood the protectiveness, the fear of losing the one so close to her heart. She understood.

But it was painful, also, to understand that whatever she might feel for this strange, quiet man with Edward's name and face and even occasionally his sharp tongue, that whatever she dared to hope he might feel in return—and she did dare—was all secondary to him.

Something in him had definitely changed. She thought she knew what it was. Eight years in that other world he never spoke of, eight years of wondering when and how and if he would ever see his brother again—it had closed his heart. How could it not have? She knew what pain was, and loneliness, and scars that never really healed. She knew what it was like to have a heart that was locked tighter than her throat. And she knew what it was to have it open again, like a withered flower that had discovered anew the sun.

He had done that for her, but she had not been able to repay him. Someone else had done it for him. The person who meant more to him than anyone in the entire world. The person he was so blindly, blissfully in love with.

_Worlds_ could not separate those brothers for long. She didn't stand a chance.

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Next link: **Mother**

Lieutenant Ross reflects on that which she can never have.


	6. Mother

_A note from the Hime no Argh herself—_

It's funny, but after nearly half a year I'm just now starting to get into fanfiction again, with this, with possibly another FMA fic, and with a un-discontinued Zelda fic, which will be posted tomorrow. I never realized how much I missed fanfiction.

Next chapter is easily my favorite piece out of those I've written yet.

Title: Mother

Summary: Lieutenant Ross reflects on that which she can never have.

Disclaimer: I don't own it.

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**Mother**

Red water was everywhere, staining the floor of the fifth laboratory like blood. The energy that shot through the room like lightning made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end and her nerves fizz in a way that told her to stay out, whatever was going on in this room was too dangerous for her to challenge.

She would have listened to her instincts. She would have turned around and run without looking back—if she hadn't recognized the figure frozen in the middle of the room, at the apex of the alchemic energy.

"Ross!" she heard Broch yell over the howling wind even as she advanced, her arms shielding her face against the light and wind and the lightning kiss of energy bolts. "What the hell are you doing! It's too dangerous!"

Maria Ross ignored her partner. She knew that already, but she could not leave Edward like this, frozen, shivering in the harsh wind, practically glowing with the reaction of his contact with red water. Was he in pain? Was he dying? Would she die if she touched him? Grimly she knew it was a very real possibility, but it was her duty to protect him. She would not shirk that duty now out of fear of a science she didn't understand.

The energy swirling through the room and rushing beneath her skin reached an almost unbearable pitch as she reached her ward. Steeling herself, she put her arms around him, shuddering as miniature lightning bolts jumped through her, and pulled him close. It was painful indeed—no, it was agony, but she hung on because that was all she could do.

"Mother," she heard him whisper before the energy died and he sank, unconscious, into her arms.

Later, in the hospital where Edward and Alphonse were placed, Edward still unconscious and Alphonse—no one really knew what to do for Alphonse—Broch waited until the hallway where they stood guard was clear before rounding on Ross.

"What the hell did you think you were doing?" her partner demanded, his voice cracking in his distress. "You could have _died!"_

She faced him angrily. She knew he was upset, she understood he had been afraid for her, but he had no right to question her actions. "I was doing our job, Broch! We were assigned to keep those boys alive! Would you have had us gawking like idiots while Edward died?"

"He's not your _son,_ Maria!"

She stared at her partner, stunned into silence by this new angle of attack.

"He—what?" she whispered at last. "What are you talking about?"

Broch averted his eyes. "Look, Maria—" He stopped and shook his head. "Lieutenant Ross. I understand, okay? He's a kid and you want to protect him. That's fine. But you take it a step further—you know you do! I know it must be hard for you, the way things are—that you can't ever—"

Only ten years of training kept Ross from slapping her partner. "Drop it, Broch," she whispered, clenching her hands into fists.

"Maria—"

"_Drop it!"_

He did.

Later Ross stood guard beside Edward's bed, watching him sleep. His face looked distressed, as though he dreamt something disturbing; she brushed a hand over his clammy forehead, wishing him soothing dreams with all her might.

Sons were left alone with their mothers died. Barren women were without children, unable to experience the joys and pains of motherhood. It wasn't fair, but little in life ever was.

_I know it might be disrespectful to you,_ Ross thought to the deceased mother of these boys. _I know I'm only kidding myself. But please, just let me pretend. Just for a little while._

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Next link: **Holding On**

The reunion.


End file.
